Dark Watch (Oregon Files 3)

THE op center crew had no time to digest her words before Mark Murphy at the weapons control announced, “I have a missile launch from the trawler. Time to impact forty-seven seconds. Gatlings are coming online.”

The tactical situation had spiraled out of control in only a few seconds, leaving Cabrillo little time to react. He relied on his mind and not the expensive equipment around him to visualize the battle and seek a solution. “Hold your fire for my signal. Conn, pump us dry and prepare for full power. Wepps, be ready to launch countermeasures and depth charges. Sonar, what’s the sub doing?”

“She seems dead in the water, no propulsion and no indication she’s going to fire.”

“Time to impact?”

“Thirty-one seconds.”

Cabrillo waited, feeling how the Oregon rode differently as the waist ballast tanks drained. At maximum speed the magnetohydrodynamic engines could move the ship her full length in just a couple of seconds. Even if his plan didn’t work, the freighter wouldn’t be where the missile thought it would.

“Sonar?”

“If anything, I’m getting the sound of escaping air, but the sub isn’t submerging.”

That cinched it for him. The sub wasn’t a threat, yet. Cabrillo wanted to blow the missile as close to the Oregon as possible to make the pirates think they’d scored a hit. “Okay, Wepps, when the missile is ten seconds out, smoke it with the Gatling. Conn, ballast us back down, but be ready on those throttles.”

Mark Murphy, also wearing dark fatigues but over a black T-shirt with the saying “Never Mind the Bollocks We Are the Sex Pistols,” brought up an external camera on the main screen. From out of the darkness a streaking corona of light raced for the Oregon a few dozen feet off the surface of the sea. The rate of closure was astronomical — at least a thousand miles per hour. The missile appeared to have been fired at an oblique angle so it would impact on the Oregon’s stern. The pirates’ intention was to take out their victim’s steering gear and propellers and leave them unable to run. Not a bad plan if they wanted to kidnap a hostage or plunder the ship’s safe.

With eleven seconds to go, Mark released the trigger safety on the Gatling gun. It was as though the weapon was eager to prove itself, like a police dog held back on its leash while its master was being mauled. The electronic brain, slaved to a dedicated radar system, found the missile in a microsecond, calculated trajectory, windage, humidity, and a hundred other factors.

The plate hiding the gun emplacement had automatically lowered when the master radar had first detected the missile launch. The autocannon adjusted its aim slightly as electric motors spooled up the six rotating barrels. The instant the computers and radar agreed it had a target, foot-long twenty-millimeter depleted uranium shells fed into the breach at three thousand rounds per minute.

The Gatling sounded like an industrial buzz saw as it cranked out a five-second burst. Forty yards from the ship the missile hit the wall of slugs. The explosion rained fire onto the sea, illuminating the side of the Oregon as though it had been caught in a miniature sunrise. Pieces of the rocket fell, carving trenches into the ocean, and a few smaller ones even rained against the ship’s hull.

“Conn, all stop, steer ninety-seven. Hali, give it a few seconds, then send a mayday on the emergency frequencie

s, but keep the power setting low so only our friends out there hear us.” Cabrillo dialed the engine room. “Max, lay a small smoke screen. Make us look like we took damage.”

“They’ll think they hit us and the ship’s dead in the water,” Eric Stone said with admiration. “You’re going to sucker them all the way in.”

“That’s the plan,” Juan agreed. “Sonar, anything on that sub?”

“Negative. We’ve now put her a mile astern. I can’t hear any machinery noises or anything else but a slow air leak.”

“Did you get her dimensions?”

“Yes, and they’re odd. She’s a hundred and thirty feet long and nearly thirty-five wide. Short and squat by conventional standards.”

Juan considered a possibility. “A North Korean minisub that somehow followed us here?”

“The computer couldn’t find a match, but it’s not likely. We’re four hundred miles from the Korean Peninsula, and I get the sense that sub’s been sitting here for a while. No way they could have beat us.”

Cabrillo didn’t doubt Linda’s assessment. “Okay, keep an eye on her. For now our priority is the pirates’ trawler. We’ll come back to investigate later.” Across the room Hali Kasim was calling out his mayday and giving an Academy Award–winning performance.

“Motor vessel Oregon, this is the trawler Kra IV, what is the nature of your mayday?” The voice over the radio was scratchy, and the output was weak, as though the pirate was transmitting at low power. No one could place his accent.

“Kra IV, this is the Oregon, we appear to have had an explosion in our steering gear. Helm is not responding, and we’re adrift.”

“Oregon, Kra. We are six miles away and closing at maximum speed.”

“I bet you are,” Hali muttered under his breath before keying the mike. “Thanks be to Allah you are here. We will lower our boarding stairs on the starboard side. Please bring all the firefighting equipment you have.”

“Kra acknowledges. Out.”

Juan switched frequencies to the tactical radios carried by Seng and his handpicked team. “Eddie, can you hear me?”

“Five by five, Chairman.” Eddie waited with his five men in a passageway in the deserted superstructure. The soldiers wore Kevlar armor over black fatigues, and all had third-generation night vision visors. Each carried sound-suppressed MP-5 machine pistols and SIG Sauer automatics. Their ammo was short loaded in the armory, meaning it had a reduced powder charge. It was powerful enough to put down a man but wouldn’t overpenetrate and potentially cause a friendly fire incident in the confines of the ship. From combat harnesses hung flash-bang grenades and enough spare magazines for a ten-minute firefight.